Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The opening chapter of this fascinating memoir sets the tone as Rudolf von Bitter Rucker entered “Death’s Door in 2008 when a vein burst in his brain; this cerebral hemorrhage had the author-mathematician on the verge of the big dramatic exit but “no spiral tunnel, no white light, no welcome from the departed one. Maybe it’s just that everything goes black.” Mr. Rucker obviously recovered to write an intriguing interesting autobiography motivated by his near death experience of nothingness. The author discusses his life as a mathematician, science fiction author, punk rocker, and hacker. He grew up in Louisville. In the same year another Louisville native son was winning a boxing gold medal in Rome, fourteen years old Rudy was injured in a swing accident. He told his dad he hurt his spleen, which proved correct as his prolific reading came in handy. With Hegel genes, it is not surprising that he read Philip K. Dick's science fiction and the writings of the On The Road beatniks; adapting the latters’ use of alcohol as a stimulator. This set the table for his life as a mathematician and a science fiction writer, but hindered his imagination rather than expanding it. Fans of one of the new light “cyberpunk” authors of the 1980s will want to read Nested Scrolls, but so will fans of nonfiction as The Autobiography of Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is a well written engaging memoir.